


Hands on Heart, Asleep

by gansey_is_our_king



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Has No Chill, Dreaming, Just a quick thing, M/M, a little scene after the Opal short story, kinda cute?, mostly angsty, plot? Nah, what even is this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 12:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: Just a quick little thing that picks up right after the Opal short story. Like, right after.Ronan dreams, Adam worries, but things are okay.





	Hands on Heart, Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my docs for so long... I almost forgot about it... hope you all enjoy??

“Dream me a fix for the shitbox,” Adam said quickly, his pulse racing, the fear a staccato tap underneath his skin. “So I can go and so I can come back. And then dream up a new Cabeswater. It doesn’t have to be like the other one. Just as good as you can make it.” 

He knew this was true. 

He knew it as certainly as he had ever known anything in his life, and saying the words out loud made Adam feel a strange swell of emotions, rising up in him like a storm. It was getting dark outside, and the air around them still smelled like the bit of rain cloud Opal had taken from her sweater. 

He looked at her, and she reached out to clutch at his hand very tightly. 

“Yes,” she told Ronan. “Because I want to go home.”

Her voice was small and soft and urgent. 

Adam forced down the lump in his throat. He stood up, and walked around the BMW to the driver side, trying not to think about how wobbly his legs were as he pulled open the door and climbed in. This close to Ronan, the world shrank down to almost nothing, just dust and sweat and the worn leather seats. Opal stayed where she was, sitting in the gravel next to the open passenger door with her hooves splayed oddly and the hem of her sweater muddy from wandering about in the trees all day. Her enormous eyes were still fixed on Ronan, who looked even more unholy and animal in the harsh interior light shining down above the dashboard, black ooze smeared across his face. 

Adam shut the door behind him. 

He curled his long legs up in the seat, knees pinned awkwardly between his chest and the steering wheel. It was uncomfortable, but also made him feel a little bit less like he was falling apart. Ronan made no move to touch him, eyes still closed and both his hands clenched in tense fists, but he must have known Adam was there, because he shifted just a fraction in the passenger seat, dark jeans scuffing on the leather as he angled his body towards Adam, a homing beacon in the dark.

It hurt to see him like that.

It made Adam want to cry.

He reached over to flip down the visor above the steering wheel, blocking what little was left of the sun from shining right in his eyes, more for something to do with his shaking hands than anything else. The keys were still lying on the front step where Ronan had tossed them minutes earlier, and the car was silent, all the icons and signals on the dashboard dark.

Adam wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. Then he wiped his sweaty face on his shirt. 

Chainsaw croaked lowly, the noise coming from everywhere and nowhere. Opal snivelled quietly, her hooves scuffing in the gravel, and Adam watched Ronan breath, the steady rise and fall of his chest against the faded black tank top he was wearing. His hands went slack first, his knuckles no longer white, and then his mouth was hanging open just slightly. The whites of his eyes were just visible as a strip beneath his lids. 

Asleep, finally. 

Dreaming, finally.

How had Adam missed all the signs that something was wrong?

He sat there and waited as the sky turned a velvety black outside, and stars poked out holes to shine through. He sat there and waited as a late summer chill crept in through the open passenger door, slipping down the back of his neck and coiling inside his chest. He sat there and waited as Chainsaw flapped down to land beside Opal, both of them tilting their heads to the left in unison to eye Ronan carefully, appraising his still form.

Time had no meaning inside the BMW. 

Adam could have been in the driver seat for minutes, or hours, or even days. His eyelids grew heavy in his exhaustion, his skin sticky with dried sweat and dust, his hands stinking like engine grease. At some point he stopped looking at Ronan, and instead started looking at the black goo on his face and down the front of his dark shirt, and he noticed that it had finally stopped dripping from his nose and ears and eyes when Ronan woke up again. 

There was something in his hands.

Something that looked like a car part, but also like a dream thing. 

Adam reached out and touched it, the metal cold under his fingers. 

Ronan opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I adore you all! I know this was short, and mostly plotless? I don't know. I have too many ideas and sometimes I forget they exist and then stumble across them a year later. Just trying to get all this out before CDTH in November!! Comments and kudos keep me writing... I swear I'm still writing :)


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